


I Corinthians

by applecameron



Category: Captain Blood (1935), Captain Blood - Sabatini
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:56:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron





	I Corinthians

Dedication: Für Elke, as always.

**I Corinthians"**, by Apple Cameron

 

I.

Peter Blood, Port Royal's newest Governor, stood, hands on his hips, frowning at the selection of shirts laid out on the bed. Today was _the_ day, he must look perfect. Not only for his bride, but for all the men whose lives had changed irrevocably, who would be with him there today, in spirit and in the flesh. All the ex-pirates, ex-slaves, ex-who-knew-what. He knew, now, what _his_ future would hold. What would come next for each of them?

Giving up one life and pulling on another was somewhat more complex than changing a shirt! Still, he chewed on his lower lip for all of three seconds, and picked, his new valet scooping up the remaining selections and scuttling away. He looked after the man. Have to do something about that servile cringe. In the past, he would have recommended a week, or even a month at sea, as the cure. Now, must the doctor find a new one?

"Gibbons," he said to the returning servant, "I have things in hand here. You go fetch a cup of tea."

"Oh, but sir --"

"Nonsense, Gibbons, there is plenty of time. I am half-dressed already. Tea. And don't rush." He smiled winsomely, blue eyes sparkling out of a tawny face. "It is my wedding morning. I need a moment alone with my conscience."

The servant half-smiled in response, bowed properly, and withdrew. Peter reached for the next article of clothing.

Jeremy had served him as shipmaster, pilot and mate, had protected him, had taken more than one beating for him, but never made that cringe, like an unprotected animal expecting to be kicked. Like someone who believed he was a slave.

What was it that made slavery true for one man and a lie for another? Blood had never believed he belonged to anyone, even Arabella, though the idea of being _purchased_ galled so much he would have traded his life to eradicate the memory. But that wasn't the thought or deed of a beaten-down man. He knew, had always known, no matter what happened, that he was a man, not chattel. What made Gibbons different than himself, or Jeremy Pitt? Luck? The luck of a successful escape, perhaps.

Jeremiah Pitt. The shipmaster would stay in service to Jamaica, Blood hoped. They would never see one another otherwise, now that Blood's duties took him permanently ashore.

He would miss life on the sea. Miss it greatly. The enormous freedom of the open water, the sense of being a law to one's self, responsible to no man but those who signed his articles. Blood would not have such blanket freedom now.

Blood bent and fumbled for his boot. Freedom. To do anything. To be anything. To toss away the restrictions of a hidebound land-lubber's life and --

He sat abruptly on the bed, boot in one hand, the other already afoot. Feeling with all the completeness of denied memory Jeremy's mouth against his own, their bodies tangled together, boots and clothing piled in a mess beneath them.

_That first time, we barely finished dinner._ Peter Blood grinned and pulled on the second boot.

Jeremy's wounds had been grievous, but he never faltered.

_In his duty to me or any of us._

###

Both men sat in the captain's cabin, very much at their ease. The meal nearly complete.

"How fared your injuries today, Mr. Pitt?"

"Very well, Captain. The pain is not so great as to keep me from my duties any longer." The other man's teeth were white against his sunburnt skin as he smiled. Mr. Pitt had been far too long indoors, as prescribed by his Captain and Doctor. His face was grown slightly pale for master of a ship, though that would change quickly.

"I am gratified to hear it. More wine, then?"

"No, thank you, sir."

The shipmaster had sat for a long, quiet moment, one finger running along the edge of his glass, nearly empty of the evening's blood-red liquid. Then grinned at his captain.

Curious, Blood asked, "Mr. Pitt?"

The man's eye twinkled. "I was thinking of dessert, Captain."

"I fear there is only a little fresh fruit --" He reached for the bell, to ring for his steward.

Jeremy stood and stayed his hand. "Not that kind of dessert, Captain." And then his lips found Peter's.

Blood's gasp of surprise quickly became quite a different sound, whilst Jeremy Pitt settled himself in his Captain's lap, as if he sat there many a time before. Pitt interlaced their fingers and held Peter's hands away from both their bodies, teasing him as their mouths jointly devoured one another. After several long moments during which neither man felt much need to come up for air, Jeremy released Blood's hands from their captivity and dug his own fingertips into Peter's hair.

This freed Peter to caress the other man's backside through his clothing, and pull them even closer together, in time with the rocking of the ship. Jeremy's body arched and returned in his clasp, causing the most incredible sensations to ripple through Blood's frame. And evoking even more incredible ones in his companion, judging by the earnest moans his own mouth swallowed. This arrangement went on for a brief eternity, and Peter's head was positively spinning by the time Jeremy withdrew and began stripping off relevant articles of clothing.

That involved some physical separation, but Peter refused to protest, as the end result was an extremely fine Jeremiah Pitt, in his arms, in nothing more than a thin shirt. Peter could reach beneath the garment and stroke the network of scars on the other man's back with his hands, affirming more intimately what he already knew as Jeremy's doctor: he was quite well, now. Quite well indeed, for any number of tasks that might arise.

There was only one task he wanted the shipmaster to handle at the moment. Jeremy's fingers loosened Peter's breeches and he gave a whisper of a cry in response, twitching for just a moment at the bare touch of the man's fingertips against his sensitized flesh. Blood relinquished his coat and shirt without protest.

His chest was now naked save for the mouth of Jeremy Pitt upon it.

Pitt reached across the table for the butter, and lifted away to apply it where it would serve them best. The smooth slickness of his touch sent Blood beyond any consideration of comfort, and he toppled them both onto the deck of the cabin, until Jeremy's head rested against a stray boot.

He looked in Pitt's eyes, the man's face flushed, parted lips like sweet cherries, eyes alight. Asked a question with his own countenance.

"Yes." Came the answer.

Blood brought his mouth down upon Jeremy's and thrust slowly but evenly into him, grinning into the kiss as Jeremy wrapped long legs around his waist.

There was no finer velvet than what lay before him, no greater plunder than this willing body. Their motion paced and outpaced that of the ship, and Jeremy's cries of pleasure came and went like the ebb and flow of the tide. Slowly Peter found himself reaching the crest of some great wave that threatened to obliterate them both. He rode it as long as he could, thrusting deeper into the treasure wrapped around him, reveling in the wild thrashing of the man underneath him. A great shudder started at his own feet and wracked his body, taking him even deeper and more completely into Jeremy, until the mighty wave overwhelmed them together, two voices crying out as one.

It was several long moments before either man could contemplate something so prosaic as speech. On deck, a bell rang. Jeremy whispered, "the watch will change shortly. Thank you for dinner, Captain."

Blood answered, "Thank you for dessert, Mr. Pitt."

II.

Peter used a kerchief to polish a scuff on his boot, then tucked it back into his sleeve.

It had not been their last time together in that way. When the fates brought them a discreet opportunity, they took pleasure in one another. There were nights when Jeremy would join Blood for dinner, return later for a nightcap, and stay far longer than mere courtesy to his captain demanded. They never spoke of it on deck.

Blood looked at his hands, the hands that had clasped Jeremy Pitt to him, the hands that had pulled the shipmaster's mouth toward his own on any number of occasions, out at sea where the world belonged just to them.

These hands belonged to Arabella now.

_When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things._

Put away Jeremy and the freedom they had enjoyed together riding the waves, as Brethren of the Coast. Put away in favor of a man's responsibilities, a wife, a governorship. The ongoing campaign of reclaiming men's souls from the vicissitudes of bondage.

_For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. _

_And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. _

###

The gift Jeremy Pitt had given him was too great to even thank him for. Silence, sustained again and again, Colonel Bishop's questions enumerated by all those terrible marks dug into the man's flesh. Marks that faded somewhat, but never fully, with time.

Once, not long after returning to duty, in the dark of night, the man had screamed and flailed in his sleep until Peter was sent for and wakened, in his own capacity as doctor. He brought Jeremy into his captain's cabin to tend those invisible wounds that brutality may leave behind, even in a strong man. A fever of the mind, the seamen would say amongst themselves over the next few days, brought on by the vicious use of his body. A relapse. Many of them had seen the whippings: Bishop punishing Pitt over all the things for which he could not beat Peter Blood. None could argue that Jeremy Pitt had ever failed in his loyalty to his captain, even before they stole their ship and their freedom.

Before dawn that morning, in that gray hour which is the gloomiest, Peter had nodded off for a moment or two in his chair, his knees touching the bed Jeremy had been placed in. He woke again, abruptly, to find a sharp blade at his neck, and Jeremy Pitt, wild-eyed, standing over him, eyes wide but unseeing, like a somnambulist.

"Mr. Pitt." Blood said, softly. "Jeremy." The blade vibrated against his throat, a hair away from the great vein in the neck, that would kill him almost instantly if cut.

"You are a foul, misbegotten creature. You should be put down like a rabid cur."

Peter exhaled through his mouth, carefully. "It is Peter Blood, Jeremy. I am not the Colonel."

As he spoke, Jeremy's lips curled into a rictus of pain and rage and stayed that way. The blade at his throat vibrated further. He did not know if this was a good sign or a poor one. "Colonel Bishop is far away from here, Jeremy. He will not lay hands on you again."

"I will slay you myself, as I swore to the first time you violated me."

The truth came to Peter in a rush, pinning him to the chair. His vision blurred of its own accord. _Violated_. Jeremy's gift had been even greater than he had ever imagined, ever conceived. "I am not the Colonel." He insisted again, but his voice did not sound like his own.

Still, something like sanity lit in the back of Jeremy's countenance, so he repeated the phrase, again and again, denouncing Colonel Bishop until Jeremy's lean frame shuddered in his nightshirt and his arm dropped.

Pitt sagged back onto the bed, blade tipping from his hand to the floor. "Peter?" He looked about the cabin, mouth working but no further sound emerging. Naked of the armor of day and still shaken by a darker past then any man had a right to expect, he did not move.

Peter Blood, carefully, reached out with one hand and put his fingers on Jeremy Pitt's arm. The man did not recoil. But it was a long moment before he turned and looked into Peter's eyes. Blood moved carefully onto the bed.

Jeremy looked him up and down. "Peter."

He wanted very much to touch more than just his fingertips to the other man's flesh, but refrained, feeling that he was the somnambulist now, walking a razor's edge between madness and something holy. "Jeremy."

Pitt's free hand moved slowly up to rest over Blood's. He looked down at their fingers together.

"Replace the memory of his hands on me." It was a whispered entreaty that chilled Peter's bones. "Even the dreams of his death do not take away that memory."

Not a weak man, unable to face sorrow, but a strong man, who knew what was needed to fight the dark and win out against it. Even in that gloomy hour before dawn.

"I will do my best." Blood promised.

They kissed.

###

Gibbons returned bearing a tray with tea things upon it. He laid out everything and served his master most efficiently, quietly, twitching the remains of Blood's costume into its proper shape as the other man sipped calmly, blue eyes distant.

Finally, the man set down his cup. "Thank you, Gibbons. Excellent tea."

"Yes, sir."

Blood exited his rooms and led the way down the hall, his valet like a shadow at his footsteps. He stopped just before the open door, turning to the other man for final inspection. "Well?" It was decided. He would ask Jeremy to take Gibbons on as steward, or a plain seaman, and they would see how well this slave might learn to cast off his shackles. How many days at sea would this cure take?

Gibbons -- unaware of serving as subject of so much consideration -- straightened the lace at Blood's neck one last time and nodded his approval. Blood smiled thinly.

Peter Blood, Governor and former pirate, strode out into the morning sun to meet his bride.

 

Biblio:

  * _Captain Blood_, by Rafael Sabatini (the servant Gibbons is my own creation), 1922.
  * The Bible, King James Version, I Corinthians, Chapter 13.




End file.
